


The Stones at Solstice

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Gen, Team Dynamics, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9419984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Winter Solstice comes but once a year. Given the havoc it wreaks on the anomalies, that's quite enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).



> Fandom_stocking gift for fredbassett. I went a bit mad with the worldbuilding.

"Are we _sure_ ," Lester said, pinching the bridge of his nose and massaging his temples, "that this is an anomaly? Not merely a stone circle firing? I hear they do that sort of thing in Northumberland, and it is, after all, the twenty-first."

 

"By about half an hour," Claudia muttered, and Lester gave her an acid look. The ARC was not as quiet as it normally was at midnight; they were running a double shift to accommodate an expected spike in anomalies. But it was pitch black outside, and there was a curious stillness to the air that reminded Claudia of how much she wanted to be in bed, asleep.

 

"Yes, Miss Brown, I am aware of the tank and armoured convoy presently being driven through the European Working Time Directive. I can't help the solstice."

 

No, Claudia thought with an internal sigh, not even you can help the solstice. She sighed externally as well as internally. "Sorry, Sir James."

 

"Not at all," Lester conceded, and grimaced. "I think it fair to say that nobody is enjoying this - not even Mr Temple."

 

"He says he's sure it's an anomaly," Ryan put in unexpectedly, and Claudia thanked heaven for a little solid human common sense. Ryan was the one of the very few of the ARC's staff who were totally supernaturally deaf, blind and mute, and it had a number of unexpected side benefits - like the ability to stay focussed and on track when the solstices were sending the anomalies and everyone else's thought processes haywire. Claudia had been seeing twice the usual number of ghosts, Abby was hanging out of a fourth-floor window talking to a peregrine falcon, Connor's pupils were doing peculiar things that reminded everyone uncomfortably that he was at least an eighth fae, Lorraine's office was currently lit by three mage-lights - the softness of which better concealed the dark shadow of her boyfriend, in werecat form, lying under the desk - and Lester, if Claudia was any judge, was currently heading for a migraine. Actively _trying_ to use your skills on the solstice, instead of letting the currents in the air work with them, was a recipe for a very bad headache. And Claudia knew Lester was pouring every ounce of persuasion he had into the budget proposal he was working on because fresh drafts kept landing in her inbox, some of them so laden with power she had to go and splash her face with water after reading them.

 

"Well, if he's sure, he's probably right," Lester said reluctantly, and then glowered at both soldier and civil servant. "Do not, on any account, tell him I said so."

 

Ryan shook his head. Claudia merely smiled.

 

"He says he's working on some code to distinguish between stone circles firing and anomalies," Claudia offered.

 

"Good," Lester said crossly, sipping at a glass of water. "Tell him to get on with it. In the meantime, yes, you can have your precious helicopter, consider it authorised." He flapped a hand at them. "Shoo."

 

Claudia and Ryan left, casting glances at each other as they passed through Lorraine's office.

 

"Maybe I should tell Ditzy to go and have a word," Ryan said quietly. "If there's time before we take off."

 

"I've already emailed him," Lorraine said, without looking up from her computer, "and called through for the helicopter." She slid a piece of paper across the desk.

 

Claudia picked it up: flight details in Lorraine's impeccable handwriting. She grinned. "Lorraine, they don't pay you enough."

 

Lorraine looked up at last, and gave one of her rare smiles. "No," she said dryly. "Even with solstice overtime."

 

"At least it is overtime," Ryan pointed out, and trod lightly on the foolishly exposed tail of the werecat beneath Lorraine's desk. "Get out from under your girlfriend's desk, corporal."

 

A large black panther with unearthly green eyes slithered out from beneath the desk - sparing a moment to rub its cheek along Lorraine's affectionate hand - and loped rapidly out of the office, down the ramp and towards the locker room. Ryan followed it, shaking his head.

 

"How does he even fit under there?" Claudia said.

 

"Magic," Lorraine said with an extremely straight face, and then relented. "He sits on my feet." She raised her eyebrows at Claudia. "Happy solstice."

 

"Ha," Claudia said, looked at the paper again, and sighed. "You know, I remember when I didn't have this job, and I actually got to take the holiday off."

 

"Enjoy Northumberland," Lorraine said, with schadenfreude.

 

Claudia stuck her tongue out at her.

 

***

 

The helicopter was large as helicopters went, but it was also crowded. Claudia forced some elbow-room for herself and counted herself lucky that Connor and Abby were rostered on to stay behind, along with Ditzy, Lyle and some of the others. By now, Abby was more than capable of finding and talking to any creature Stephen could find and speak with, and Connor's encyclopaedic knowledge of dinosaurs and turn for computer wizardry came in as useful as his sheer, startling luck; they also functioned well as a team. The same could not be said of Stephen and Danny, which was one reason why Claudia was here. There was nothing supernatural about her ability to stop a fight between the two of them - Danny too reckless for Stephen's liking, too fond of relying on his more-than-natural luck, Stephen too introverted and reserved for Danny to make friends with easily, or even necessarily listen to - but it certainly wasn't a common skill.

 

Ryan was currently sitting between the terrible twosome, his broad shoulders and total deafness to any sniping remarks or jeering a very reassuring safeguard against any undignified spats in the helicopter itself.  Claudia smiled gratefully at him.

 

It was extremely noisy in the helicopter, so Stephen and Danny would have to yell at each other to jibe at each other. Ryan saw her smiling, though, and by the responding tilt of his smile, he knew what she meant.

 

By the time they reached the village of Duddo, it was well after dawn. A clear night had enabled them to fly before sunrise, and they'd met the local police in Berwick-on-Tweed. They still knew nothing about the potential anomaly, beyond the fact that it existed and somebody had called in its existence. No creatures had been mentioned. Danny thought that was a good sign, indicating that nobody had found a utahraptor in their back garden, but Stephen pointed out, from bitter experience, that small rural communities tended to absorb anomalies without comment or reliance on the authorities. After all, only a hundred years ago they'd been seeing off unfriendly vampires and werecreatures less well-disposed than Niall Richards by themselves. Anything short of an apatosaurus infestation was liable to be greeted with an unimpressed grunt and intervention organised by the local mayor, or the nearest priest with standing - possibly even the local family of guardians, supposing there was one. Claudia had never been able to forget the hatchet-faced, steel-spined old lady in a pink twinset they'd met somewhere north of Inverness, carrying a bloody claymore and a battered targe, and explaining that things were difficult now the twins had moved south to Glasgow for work, but you couldn't have creatures like that frightening the wee ones, no indeed.

 

Danny tried to commandeer a squad car and zoom off south-west to Duddo without anyone else from the project; that was the other problem with him, his total independence. Fortunately, Ryan stuck to him like glue, Claudia manoeuvred Stephen into another car, and they drove off to the small village without anyone losing their temper.

 

"Tell me I wasn't that bad," Stephen said to Claudia. "In the early days."

 

Claudia snorted into the woolly scarf wrapped around her neck. It was a recent acquisition, a present, and she was very fond of it - they'd done a solstice swap gift exchange two days previously, at the end of the gear-up towards Winter Solstice, before everyone became ratty and unreasonable after forty-eight hours of trying to differentiate between anomalies and stone circles firing off in inhospitable parts of the country. "You were an awful lot worse."

 

Stephen let his head thunk back against the seat. "I haven't heard anything from Connor or Abs. You?"

 

"No, but Lester has sent me four texts complaining about the state of his dealings with the Minister since I left, and saying that if it turns out to be just a stone circle firing he'll write a stern letter of protest and burn it in the sacred flame at the nearest temple."

 

"Lester's religious?" Stephen said, sounding very shocked.

 

"No," Claudia said. "He's practical. And he likes to have something to bitch at, even if it probably isn't real."

 

Stephen was temporarily thoughtfully silent. "Have any of your ghosts ever - you know..."

 

"No," Claudia said. She was used to this question. "The only thing all the religious ghosts I've ever met had in common was the firm conviction that their belief in their particular deity was totally accurate. Unfortunately, they all believe in different deities."

 

Stephen snorted, and the grizzled sergeant driving the car grinned. In a strong Northumbrian accent, he volunteered the information that he could also see ghosts, which was a lasting trial to him, as their testimony was not acceptable evidence in a court of law, and frequently the ones you didn't want to talk to hung around while the ones you would've quite liked a word with buggered off before you ever got near them.

 

Claudia assimilated this. "Nobody else in my family has the touch," she said, a little apologetically, as she looked out of the window at the high hedges rushing past and dawn's last delicate pink tinge washing out of the winter sky. "They always thought it would be useful to an archaeologist, but I didn't want to be an archaeologist like them, and anyway, have you ever tried talking to a grumpy Viking who's convinced he's missed his lift to Valhalla and just wants everyone to go away? Because I don't recommend it."

 

"Your parents are archaeologists, miss? Ever seen a stone circle fire off?"

 

Claudia and Stephen exchanged a sideways glance, both recognising the patented tone of the local who had decided they needed more contextual information to carry out their anomaly-related duties. Stephen, who was not a good conversationalist with strangers, pulled out his phone and started texting the ARC for any more information on the anomaly that had come through; Claudia continued to carry the conversation.

 

"Yes, but not because my parents are archaeologists. They do Romans, really, so does my sister. We lived quite near one, so I went to see it one year."

 

She'd been nineteen, home from university for the Winter Solstice, and trying to impress a boyfriend. Avebury wasn't close, but it wasn't very far either, and it went off reliably at half-past six on the nearest Saturday to any of the four High Days. Claudia still remembered the rush of pale light and silent wind, reaching high into the midnight-blue sky, whipping her hair around her face and drawing every ounce of power she had into a shining, electric halo that made her clothes crackle with static and every hair on her body rise up. It had been like being tossed around in a full washing machine for several minutes, enjoying the sensation so much you didn't realise you couldn't breathe until too late.

 

Claudia had woken up on the floor of the Red Lion pub, which was right in the middle of the circle, and had been gently patronised and fed strong, sweet tea for half an hour by the landlady until they decided she was all right to leave. Hugh had been useless throughout. She'd broken up with him, mercilessly, at New Year.

 

"Pretty spectacular, isn't it? Duddo only goes off every few years." The sergeant sounded quite proprietorial.

 

Alarm bells rang in Claudia's head. "Is it due to go off this year?"

 

The sergeant shook his head. "Went off on Midsummer Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, nobody's expecting a thing from it."

 

Claudia sat back in her seat, and looked at Stephen. "Anything from the ARC?"

 

Stephen nodded. "It's blinking in and out and won't hold steady; Connor says it should be winding down."

 

The sergeant drove straight through the little village of Duddo, past a ruined tower and a rather melodramatic church, and kept going past a small chunk of woodland until an apparently pre-arranged spot where he pulled over on the side of the road, behind the car Danny and Ryan were in. Claudia got out, followed by Stephen, and re-joined Danny and Ryan. There was no sign of any stone circle or anomaly.

 

There was also a battered, muddy navy blue Land Rover, pulled onto the verge ahead of them. It had the words 'Bamburgh Research Project' and a symbol of a pair of intertwined dragon-heads printed on the driver's door. Suspicious, Claudia peered nosily into it, and saw the untidy but not uncared for inside of a rather old car. A dark blue tartan blanket was thrown carelessly over the shabby grey seats in the back, and a couple of archaeological textbooks had fallen into the footwell, along with a hospital-issue walking stick. A pair of used, empty disposable coffee-cups and a open pack of humbugs rested in the front, as did a pair of large black gloves, tossed onto the passenger seat. There was a shade drawn over the boot space; Claudia couldn't see if there was anything in there.

 

Danny ran his hands through his strawlike hair and shivered theatrically, drawing his coat close about himself. "'S bloody cold."

 

"It's the North," Ryan said stolidly. "Any sight of the anomaly?"

 

Stephen shook his head. "Connor says that it's near the stones. Possibly among them."

 

"Which is...?"

 

Stephen turned on his heel and pointed over the fields.

 

"Great," Danny said. "Looks like a hike."

 

Claudia stood on Stephen's foot. Danny's tone had been pretty cheerful, and it was fairly clearly a joke, but Stephen wasn't above a snide remark about it. "Think of it as working off your Solstice Dinner."

 

"I was planning on a takeaway," Danny said, as they headed out into the fields, led by the most senior of the policemen and surrounded by the soldiers who had come with them. Stephen had a tranquiliser rifle slung over his back, and Ryan was armed, but neither Claudia nor Danny had any weapons. It went against the grain for Danny, Claudia knew, but he was being more graceful about it than Claudia had expected. And, in fairness, he wasn't as good a shot as Stephen - except when his luck intervened, and some impossible shot came off.

 

"Exactly," Claudia said. "Think about all that MSG and fat. And you know how important it is to keep moving, maintain those healthy joints."

 

Danny grinned down at her. "I'm not in my nursing home yet, Claud."

 

"That's good," Claudia said, grinning back. "Otherwise we might have to leave you in the car."

 

After about five minutes' walk, the stones came into view; a small circle of five stones like grey upraised fists on a slightly risen patch of ground that visibly wasn't farmed. In the centre, the deranged snow globe of an open anomaly spun, twisted, and vanished. Next to the stones, four small figures stood: two police constables in their yellow reflective jackets, and two less brightly dressed. One of them - even Claudia could see it, when the figure turned - was carrying a sheathed sword.

 

"Who are the civilians?" Ryan asked, voice suddenly a little harder and more distant.

 

"One of them said he was one of your lot," said the senior policeman walking with them, halting. He frowned in a way that did not bode well for the officers who'd picked them up in Berwick-on-Tweed and had failed to mention the two interlopers. "Werewolf, talks like a toff, dark hair...? He just goes by the one name. So does his friend."

 

"Becker," Ryan said, as they started walking again. "He's not the one with the sword, though, they're too short."

 

Claudia had recognised Inspector Jessop's description too, and frowned. "He said he was going to visit family in Leicester. What's he doing here?"

 

"I want to know what he's doing by an active anomaly site," Ryan said disapprovingly. "If he stresses that leg he'll ruin it."

 

"I thought the velociraptor did that," Stephen said.

 

"Yeah, but there's no need for Becker to help it out." Ryan looked at the Inspector. "Who's the other one?"

 

"They told us they were both from guardian families," Inspector Jessop said. "They showed relevant ID. The woman's called Morris - she turned up armed, and lent him a crossbow." Inspector Jessop looked visibly disapproving.

 

"No trouble, I hope?" Ryan said. The expression on his face boded ill for both Morris and Becker if there had been any.

 

"Nope. Both very polite. Good kids," Inspector Jessop said. He couldn't be more than forty-five himself, but Becker looked younger than his twenty-six years, and presumably Morris was much the same age. "She's an archaeologist with the Bamburgh Research Project on the coast. They said they were driving home to spend the Solstice with family and stopped to visit the circle at dawn, saw your whizzy magic thing there, and went and called the police."

 

Claudia let the Inspector believe the anomaly was magic, although they actually had no idea how the anomalies related to magical phenomena; there was a school of thought that suggested some moronic warlock in a university somewhere had messed with dark matter too much and cocked everything up for everyone. They looked strange enough for people to think they were magical, and a lot of people did; it saved the ARC  a great deal of bother. People avoided magic things and reported them fairly promptly, except for the most arrogant mages, and tiny rural communities with a very straightforward approach to problem-solving. 'Magnetic portals through time' didn't have millennia of folk memory behind them saying 'this is dangerous, leave it the fuck alone'; 'it's magic and I don't know how it got here' did.

 

They finally reached the stone circle, and the four people waiting for them. The anomaly flashed into existence, attracting a sharp glance from the young guardian standing beside Becker; a stocky, strong-shouldered woman of his own age, with short dirty blonde hair poking out from under a helmet that came down over her brows and nearly bumped her tortoiseshell glasses, and a hauberk hastily slung over a hoodie and a green infinity scarf. The sword she was carrying was loose in the scabbard, and her hand was on its pommel, but she hadn't drawn it.

 

Becker had a crossbow instead, loaded with a quarrel that shone copper at the end, and a quiver full of more quarrels slung over the shoulder of his old waxed Barbour. Claudia had spent long enough with the military contingent to be reasonably confident that wasn't the only weaponry he was carrying. He also looked extremely sheepish.

 

"Bit of a busman's holiday, soldier boy," Danny yelled, over the wind. It was whistling curiously; Claudia listened carefully for a melody, but could hear none.

 

"Did you miss everything we told you about resting that leg?" Ryan bawled.

 

If possible, Becker looked more sheepish, and faintly defiant.

 

"It's Winter Solstice, be nice," Claudia sighed. Stephen grinned at her, and she shook her head.

 

"Who's the girlfriend?" Danny shouted cheerily.

 

"She could take him from here," Stephen remarked. The look the woman gave Danny - a quick, assessing up-and-down that said _how big a threat are you, how much do I care about what you've just done, and how miserable can I make life for you?_ as loudly as a troop of bugles - suggested that Stephen wasn't wrong. Morris, if that was her name, followed it up by turning away and watching the spot where the anomaly had been, indifference in every line of her body.

 

They finally got within talking distance of the small group, and the policemen converged on Inspector Jessop. Becker and the armoured woman came to meet Claudia,  Danny, Stephen and Ryan, Becker moving with a pronounced limp. He should probably still be using a stick, Claudia thought, but was fairly sure he would deliberately have forgotten it in the car she'd seen earlier.

 

"Sorry, boss, Miss Brown," Becker said. "Not trying to interfere or screw up my leg. It just sort of happened."

 

"It's my fault," his friend said, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Beck needed to stretch his leg out before the drive, and I was the one who suggested we come here."

 

"Not to worry, Miss...?" Ryan began.

 

"Dr Morris," Morris said, sticking out a hand to shake. She had a Midlands accent, contrasting sharply with Becker's cut-glass tones, and a voice made of honey. "I'm with the Bamburgh Research Project. I'm actually from a Leicester clan, so this is really none of mine or Beck's business, whatever it is, but my aunt heads a clan in Alnmouth and she'd kill me if I just left this thing hanging around without even waiting for the police to get here. Though Beck says it's not magic."

 

"We don't know if it's magic or not," Claudia corrected, and smiled at Morris, shaking hands with her. She had big brown eyes and a no-nonsense jaw, and she and Becker had quite a few of the same expressions. "Are you part of Becker's clan?"

 

"Mine adopted him," Morris said. Nothing in her face or voice betrayed the fact that this was unusual; guardians stopped swapping clans automatically when they moved or married away in the 1940s, as far as Claudia knew, and her best friend at school had been born into a guardian family. "Getting on for ten years ago, now."

 

"I didn't know there were werewolf guardians."

 

"You learn something new every day." Morris jerked her thumb at the anomaly, which had just disappeared again. "Speaking of."

 

"Classified," Claudia said, smiling to soften the blow. "Sorry."

 

"Never mind," Morris said. "Can we leave now?"

 

"Of course," Claudia said, "provided you don't mind signing the Official Secrets Act in the near future."

 

Morris shrugged, and looked over at Becker, who was conferring closely with Ryan and Stephen. Danny was deep in conversation with the policemen, one of the soldiers standing by him while the others fanned out around the space where the anomaly had been. Inspector Jessop was frowning, and one of the officers in yellow was talking nineteen to the dozen. Somebody was toiling over the fields with tape for a cordon, which struck Claudia as a wasted effort this far out on Winter Solstice - particularly given that nobody was expecting to see the circle fire, according to their sergeant's local expertise.

 

Claudia went over and joined Ryan, Stephen and Becker, and was unsurprised when Morris followed her.

 

"We haven't seen anything or anyone come through," Becker summarised, seeing their approach. "And it keeps -" he waved illustratively at the stones and anomaly, just as it winked back into existence. "You see."

 

"Yes," Ryan said, giving the anomaly a gimlet stare. Claudia wasn't too impressed by the idea that they'd come all the way up here for a mysterious reappearing and disappearing flicker of an anomaly that nothing had come out of, either. "What about the wind?"

 

Becker shook his head. "Constable Adebajo says that's just the way the wind is around these stones, if it's blowing in the right direction." He raised his head into the wind. "It doesn't smell off."

 

Ryan nodded. "Go and get back on the road, Becker. Thanks for keeping an eye on the anomaly. And stay off that bloody leg! You're supposed to be on leave!"

 

"Yessir," Becker said, and disappeared with remarkable speed for someone who had been clinging to life in hospital three months previously. Werewolf healing, Claudia supposed, and wished her own talent came with useful bonuses like that.

 

Morris rolled her eyes and settled her sword more securely in its sheath. "Don't worry, we'll sort him. No long Solstice walks, promise." She nodded impartially at the group. "Nice to meet you. May the turning of the year bring you all good things."

 

Appropriate remarks were mumbled in response, and Morris and Becker collected their weapons and left. Claudia watched them over the fields for a bit, and then went back to watching the anomaly.

 

"I think it's holding steady," Stephen said, after five minutes had passed and the anomaly was both still open and not wavering.

 

"Glad to know we didn't come here for nothing," Danny remarked, and Stephen made an agreeing noise.

 

The whistling of the wind intensified, and the anomaly bulged slightly. Claudia felt herself tense, but held her ground; everyone with a weapon had it pointed at the anomaly. Constable Adebajo, standing next to Claudia, snapped her fingers and clapped her hands twice, activating a pre-made spell; a shimmering shield appeared over her chest, neck and head. It didn't look spontaneous. She probably had either just enough power to make the shield over time, in advance, or a friend, relative or partner who wanted her to be safe and had woven a shield much more comprehensive than the typically-issued stab vests.

 

"Something's coming through," Stephen said.

 

"Hold steady," Ryan called.

 

Claudia caught herself between one breath and the next, and wondered how the anomalies had come to feel as normal as the Blitz ghosts at her nearest Tube station. She glanced sideways at Constable Adebajo.

 

"Doesn't happen every day, does it?" the policewoman muttered.

 

Claudia grinned. "Oh yes, it does," she said, "sometimes twice or more," and waited for the impossible to emerge into a world full of magic.

 


End file.
